ahead of punxsutawney phil! >> oh, yeah. >> gregg: thanks for joining us. >> julie: forks news sunday starts now. >> i'm chris wallace and this is "fox news sunday." the president turns his focus to jobs and the economy. can the white house and congress get people back to work. now, that new york city seems out, where will the administration hold those terror trials? as the president reaches across the aisle, we convene our own bipartisan group. for the democrats, senator evan bayh and congressman chris van hollen. for the republicans senator lamar alexander and congressman paul ryan. then the presidents it rare oncamera give and take with house companies. >> it can't be all or nothing one way or the other. >> we will ask our sunday panel if mr. obama wants to deal or just win the argument.

and our power player of the week. the young man who tells washington's top reporters when they are wrong. all right now on "fox news sunday." hello again from fox news in washington. the new focus here in the capital is on job creation and there was good news friday about strong fourth quarter growth. joining us now to talk about the economy, the president's revised agenda and more are four key congressional players. and gentlemen, welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> thank you. >> thank you. >> let's start with the big picture. congressman ryan as the top rap on the house committee you called the president's state of the union speech insincere and then added this. he inched his rhetoric to the middle while doubling down in the substance and policies he has been pushing all along. the president proposed a spending freeze. he proposed tax credits. he proposed eliminating the capital gains tax for all

investment in small business, to paraphrase him in the state of the union. why aren't you applauding. >> hthe freeze is delayed one year so this really isn't fiscal discipline. it is the rhetoric of fiscal discipline but the rhetoric of the opposite. the tax idea when that was tried before in the carter administration that didn't work. this doesn't work and more importantly the debt and deficit is just getting out of control and the administration is still pumping through billions upon trillions of new spending. that does not growing the economy. if borrowing and spending led to more job is we would be at full employment already. >> chris: senator bayh you voted against president obama more than any other senate democrat especially on spending bills and a couple of weeks ago you said your party is tone deaf in understanding the

message that voters are sending. do you think the president and now separately congressional democrats, do you think they now get it, that they understand the message that voters have been sending them? >> i hope so, chris. i think the president's state of the union suggests that we are heading in a better direction. we can all criticize what happened last year under the previous administration but the real question is where do we go from here? a freeze on discretionary spending is a good step in the right direction. the president's ledg pledge too bills that go beyond. i john mccain and i last week put out suggestioning, taking some of paul's good ideas about how to retrain spending. it was a wakeup call but whether we get the message and do the tough things to implement what needs to be done remains to be seen. i took the president's speech as a hopeful sign that we are heading in the right direction.

>> chris: senator alexander, when you see the u.s. economy growing at almost 6% in the fourth quarter. that is the fastest pace in six years. don't the stimulus and some of his policies deserve at least some of the credit? >> i don't think so. i mean the -- it is growing from a low base and but give the president -- i will give the president some credit in the right church but the wrong pew is the way i would say it. he is talking about jobs, he is talking about tax cuts but as paul pointed out, the specific things he is talking about i don't think work as well. the idea of some leaving out the payroll tax for a year. payroll tax, that might help. but the idea of spending tarp to pay for this, that won't help. >> chris: that is the money that has been repaying -- >> we should be ending the bank bailout. >> chris: tarp is the money that was spent for the bank bailout and he wants to use the money that was paid back. >> it was a loan that has been paid back.

it ought to be used to reduce the debt. we ought to be ending the bank bailouts. >> chris: congressman van hollen, you have a tough job. you are in charge of the committee that is going to try to elect more democrats to congress in november. you have to be keenly aware if this is a recovery it is a jobless recovery at least in the minds of most americans. unemployment is still 10% and republicans including these republicans say a big reason is that employers are afraid of the uncertainty, the policy uncertainty here in washington. is congress -- is the president going to improcess new taxes, are they going to impose new regulations and it is not a good climate for hiring. >> we have been focused on jobs from day one. the stimulus bill has seen a dramatic turn around. the fast around turn around that you have seen in three decades. a year ago this month it was plummeting at a downiate of

6.5%. we just saw the gdp numbers going up. you have to believe in the tooth fairy to believe that the recovery will had no impact and you see a lot of the house member going to grand breaking and ribbon breaking ceremonies across the country who voted against the stimulus bill. if they had their way, those wouldn't be happening. and when it comes to jobs we were losing jobs at the rate of 750,000 a month ayear a go. a tenth as many. we are making progress. we are on the upswing and that is why the president has focused on the jobs acceleration plan. we adopted one in the house and we hope the senate will follow suit. >> we set the table and got you all involved in a conversation. there is a lot that you have talked about. let's pick up on it. first of all, senator bayh and congressman ryan this question as to whether or not the spending freeze and the president's ideas for fiscal discipline are real or a sham.

go at it. >> if you look, i suspect paul does not, but the left wing blogs are criticizing the president for being to austere. paul is right, domestic spending increased last year. i voted against the omnibus, i vote the against the mini bus, i voted against the bus. the freeze is important. he identified $20 million which if you aggregate is $250 billion less spending. does that solve all our spending? no, it is a step in the right direction. the use of the veto pen, is it a wake up call? it is but it is important that congress not hit the snooze button. we need long-term solutions to get the spending and deficit down. >> a freeze is good so why delay it for a year. the president is saying don't do a freeze now, do it next year. what matters is the first year spending level set by congress and we are de leymarie laying that. we just did an 84% increase in a very short period of time of

all the new spending. the democrats increased domestic discretionary spending by $1.4 trillion. it ised aing to the deficit and the debt. economists are telling us stop doing all of the spending and get your handle on the debt and deficit and lower tax rates for employers and workers. that is the best way to grow the economy and so that is what we are seeing. we are seeing the rhetoric of fiscal discipline but not seeing the follow through on the policy. >> chris: a couple of things i want to pick up here. the president said i'm going to have the spending freeze in the state of the union and it will start next year. frankly some of the members laughed at him. why not start with this budget which he isn't submitting until this week? >> the president understands that the most important thing you do today to address the deficit is get the economy go jag, you have to gegoing. one of the thing things is the

continuing drag from the economic downturn. jock number one is to get the economy going. we passed the recovery bill and have seen the rapid turn around in terms of gdp for three decades. at the same time you put in place the measures to make sure that you reduce the deficit over the out years. the senate passed a statutory pay as you go bill which constrains spending. it was a very important moment. the house passed it. unfortunately our republican colleagues oppose it but i think most families understand the concept that if you have a budget and you are going to increase it some where else you have to find offsets or some other way to pay for it. it as vermont simple very conservative concept and that along with the commission and other ideas, the freeze on domestic, i think is a good idea. >> we don't think taking all of this money out of the private economy up to washington and spending it through washington is the way to create jobs.

we believe we should keep the money in the economy. the democrats last year waived about $400 billion in spending on pay go. >> chris: that means if you going to spend something that you find a way to pay for it so it doesn't add to the deficit. >> it usually leads to tax increases which is harmful to job creation. >> chris: i want to bring senator alexander in for a minute. the republicans always say the answer across-the-board tax cuts that is always the answer, that is what is as a matter of fact, mike pence unwith of the leaders of the republican caucus said to the president on friday. you had across-the-board tax cuts and turned a huge budget surplus into a huge deficit and didn't stop flurries getting into this mess -- didn't stop us from getting into this mess. >> one is reduce taxes. another is cheap energy instead of a national energy tax. another is reduce healthcare costs instead of. >> chris: would you give an across-the-board tax cut to people making a billion dollars

a year? >> today i wouldn't give that tax cut. today i would have tax cuts for -- i would eliminate the capital gains tax, number one. number two, i wouldn't increase any taxes as they now are scheduled to be done. number three, i would give a payroll tax holiday and that would be that part of it. and then i would join with the president who moved a little bit toward the republican position on cheap energy, nuclear power, offshore drilling, energy r & d and say let's have cheap energy instead of an energy tax. >> chris: you all talk about the deficit and doing something about it. senator alexander you and senator bayh voted for a congressional debt commission. you voted for it. it went down in the senate and the president said one of the reasons it went down is because seven republican senators who originally cosponsored it flipped and voted against it. how are we going to get

anything done with that type of politics. >> bring it back up. the president gave a half hearted endorsement to that over the weekend, not even mentioning it by name. it had 17 republican supporters who supported it and the president had 60 democrats. any effective president with 60 men and women on his wide in the senate who has 17 republicans for an important idea out to be able to pass it. >> come on, chris. here the republican senators cosponsored the legislation and for purely political reasons voted against it at the end of the day. look, the fact of the matter is the republicans have said their solutions once again, big tax cuts, disproportionately focused on helping the very wealthy. those are the tax cuts that got us into the fix to begin with. unpaid for war in iraq and the fact that these guys voted for a prescription drug bill that was unpaid for, the largest expansion --

>> wait. >> but. >> let me -- as i said to you, let me play traffic cop here and i want to ask a specific question and then we have to turn to healthcare which you haven't even mentioned yet. senator alexander the president says given the fact that this hasn't passed, the congressional debt commission that he has signed an executive order to create a presidential commission and it will have republican members and democratic members. if he is asked if you are asked whether you be willing to serve on the presidential commission on debt? >> i would say mr. president don't waste you time on it. it will be a gesture. there was a tax commission and we paid no attention to it. it wouldn't involve the congress. it is not self-enforcing. go back to senator mcconnell and the republicans and democrats and get seven more to vote for the debt commission. >> chris: why can't we get more republicans. >> if you are the president and agenda passer and i offer you 17 votes you ought to be able

to do it. >> chris: would you serve on the debt commission? >> i would if i was asked to serve on that. the president more politicized the commission. the author of the commission is opposing it because the president made it more democratically tilted so they they can move the thick forward so it is not a bipartisan commission at all for all practical purposes. >> i think it is unfortunate the blame laying that is going on here. you question put the onus where it belonged. i supported it. we had bipartisan support. the president endorsed it, maybe at the last minute but he endorsed it. the problem was a few members in the senate who flipped their decision because of short-term political implications. democrats will be right back in the same place to address the issues. we have to get the finger pointing out of the way and get enough of the members to step up and support the thing. >> i think we have to do your

job. >> chris: we have to talk healthcare. is comprehensive healthcare reform dead for the year? when is the house going to bring it back up and are you now looking towards smaller incremental bills. >> it is not dead. we are in conversations with the senate to figure out how we may be able to structure something. >> chris: comprehensive? >> w we looking at ways to be comprehensive. the nebraska deal, even senator nelson said he doesn't want that in the bill. there are certain changes to be made and people were upset about things like that deal. the goal is to try to get comprehensive healthcare passed. >> chris: republicans keep saying they have their own plan and they can do more for less. let's look at the facts. according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office the house republican plan would extend coverage to $3 million,

leaving 15 million uninsured. and a refundable tax credit of $5,700 to buy coverage. the average family policy costs $13,000 a year. >> we have high risk pools so people with reexisting conditions can get affordable care. under the bill that i proprosed we would get to universal coverage. point is republicans have offered dozens of comprehensive healthcare plans, many of which achieve comprehensive healthcare reform. we want to fix what is broken in healthcare. >> chris: when we come back, with the obama administration rethinking new york city as the venue for the 9/11 trials, does the president need a reset

who d

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>> chris: we are back now with senator bayh, congressman van hollen, congressman ryan and senator alexander. seems the administration is going to move the trial of the 9/11 suspects out of new york city. where should they hold it, should it be in a federal court for a military commission? >> military commission. we have to make a distinction between kids that break into a sandwich shop in detroit and a person that tries to blow up an airplane. we need find out from terrorists like the christmas day bomber what else he knows, what we found out is the best

way to prevent airplanes from blowing up with americans on them is to find out in advance and the failure to interrogate the christmas day bomber, the idea of trying the 9/11 architect in the middle of new york city shows a reluctance to separate en enemy combatants ad u.s. citizens who commit crimes. >> chris: will you vote for or against the $200 million to support security for trials for tee detainees in the u.s. >> it is hard to justify spending more money on a trial in a location. three criteria where can we try them safely, quickly and

inexpensively. i'm for whichever venue accomplishes those things. this sounded good in theory but in practice doesn't work so well. >> i don't think we should spend any more money that is absolutely necessary to try these guys. try them quickly and impose harsh sentences including the death penalty for people that killed americans. >> chris: you would not support $200 million and two cities for trial in civil court. >> why spend the money? we have a lot of other fiscal problems. >> after the christmas day bomb attempt you went after house republicans saying they were trying to score political points and even raise money off the terror plot. going into the 2010 elections do democrats really want to be in the position of defending the handling of abdulmutallab by the u.s. government? >> this is an area i think we have seen our colleagues

playing a lot of politics. it was a fact that a number of members went right on the internet and tried to raise money. under the bush administration we used the federal courts and military commissions. under the obama administration we are using federal courts and military commissions. they are using the mckinley i will terri commissions for many -- they are using the military commissions for many people detained but they decided to use the federal courts for certain of the 9/11 perpetrators. >> chris: would you support $200 million for city in order to hold the trials. >> i don't think that we should make the very important judgment of whether it as military commission or a federal court based on dollars and cents. those are much more important considerations than that. we should clearly find the area where you don't have to spend as much for federal court versus another, you know, one

in new york city versus some where else. i do believe if you look at the bush administration record they tried, we all know it is a matter of record, other of the 9/11 perpetrators, the 20th hijacker, the shoe bomber, these were all people tried in federal courts and all the obama administration has said is we will pick the venue which most likely results in success in putting these people away. sometimes it is federal courts. sometimes it is -- >> chris: it seems clear that attorney general holder made the call both to hold these civilian trials of khalid shaikh muhammad in new york city and also to read abdulmutallab his miranda rights. do you still have confidence in attorney general holder or do you think that he should step down? congressman ryan, i will start with you. >> i think he is making the wrong decisions. we should have learned from the mistakes in the past. we shouldn't

be mirandaizeing terrorists. he is going to give khalid shaikh muhammad a propaganda tool. >> chris: do you think he should step down? >> i wouldn't have hired him in the first place. >> i think he ought to step up to congress if he made the decisions. he is doing a better job of interrogating cia employees and this than he is of interrogating terrorists. he needs to go to congress and say i made that decision and here is why and based on that perhaps he should step down. but he ought to go to congress and tell us who made that decision. we don't know that yet. we askd that question many times. >> chris: senator bayh? >> the attorney general is a good man. none of us are perfect.

and i think the decision to have these trials in new york as i said sounded good in theory way back when but in practice it was not the right thing to do. we run the risk here of elevating form over substance. three tie yearia, where can you try them quick and as inexpensively as possible and where do you not jeopardize american security any more than necessary. whechoose that type of location and that type of trial that accomplishes those three things. >> chris: do you stand by the attorney general even in his decision to read abdulmutallab his miranda rights after only 50 minutes of interrogation? >> i know that the fbi agents who interrogated him who were the best in the world said they got the information he needed and he will certainly be convicted as a result of the court proceedings. >> chris: the former cia director saying it is not a matter of conviction, it is a

matter of intelligence and there is no way you can get a proper interrogation in 50 minutes. >> my understanding is that the fbi investigators got what they needed. i wasn't there, downtown know. what i do know is that it is unfortunate that we see some people calling for eric holder to step down when has been making the same decisions with respect to federal courts for some of the terror suspects versus military commissions as the bush administration did and the same people who are calling for his resignation didn't call for the resinnation of the bush officials. that's politics. >> chris: congressman ryan, you participated in the remarkable session on friday with the president where for 90 minutes you the house companies and the president went at it. here was the president's core message. let's watch. >> they didn't send us to washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel cage match to see who comes out alive. >> chris: congressman, do you

think from what you saw there that the president was looking for real compromise and was showing some flexibility on substance or just looking to score political points. >> i think it was great. i'm really happy he came. i think it was refleshing and a good start. that is the first time i and many of my colleagues have had a chance to talk policy with the president. that was fantastic. 2009 was a year of sort of one party domination, jam things through. let's hope this is a new year of getting things done. one thing that came out of that is the president actually acknowledged we have been advocating substantive alternatives all year long so all the business of the party of no has been nullified because the president acknowledged we have been putting up detailed alternative policies so to me that is the beginning of a new relationship hopefully. rhetoric is good, see if it's followed up by substance. >> the president also said that republicans are unfairly portraying his proposals and his agenda. let's watch that. >> if you were to listen to the debate and frankly how some of

you went after this bill, you would think that that thing was some bolshevic plot. i'm not an idealogue. i'm not. >> anything that cuts medicare, raises premiums and sends the states a big bill for the medicaid expansion, that deserves to be voted against and characterized as a bad idea, which we did. >> chris: do you think he is an idealogue? >> in many ways, no. i think he doesn't think he is an idealogue but i think he approaches things in the way a professor would with big complicated schemes when in fact the big country we have works best when we solve problems step by step. >> chris: let's talk politics with a capital t here.

congressman van hollen you are in charge of electing more democrats to the house here. in the wake of the november loss in new jersey and virginia and in the wake of scott brown's victory in massachusetts, how much trouble is your party in? >> the party is not in trouble but we need to recognize what is on the mind of the american people which is jobs and the congress will be focused on a jobs acceleration going forward and try to pass the wall street accountability bill so we don't have the taxpayers left holding the bag again in the future. if you have bad decisions on wall street and the president made a proposal to make sure that the taxpayer gets all the moneys back at the end of the day and we are hoping our republican colleagues will join us in that. i think if we focus on the fundamental issues and we all know healthcare reform is essential to bring down the deficit over a long period of time. all my colleagues would

acknowledge that. ithink if we focus on that it we will be in good shape going forward. it is always a difficult year, the first year for a new president. the president's point is not that the republicans don't have any ideas, he pointed out you didn't incorporate some of them like tax cuts as part of the stadium luciana bill. he is saying let's not go -- as part of the stimulus bill. let's not go back to the things that got us in trouble in the beginning, for example, big tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. >> the president had nice things to say about you at friday's session. let's watch. >> i think paul ryan is a sincere guy and has a beautiful family. in case he is going to get a republican challenge, i didn't mean it. >> now, there is something else we need to add to the mix and that is that we have found out that you are speaking at two republican fundraisers in new hampshire in the next few weeks. when you look them in the mirror, do you see a president

staring back at you? >> no, i do not and i'm not running for president. my good friend asked me to come up there and help the party. i think that was the president's nefarious plot to get a primarily against me. i'm just joking. we have a huge difference of opinion. >> on the rare note of bipartisan good feeling we want to thank you all for coming in and we appreciate it and we will see how much work washington actually gets done this year. >> thank you. >> chris: coming up, the sunday panel on bahar i what is beinga want to know how fast it took my stiff joints to feel better? one pack. 6 days. that's elations. new elations. clinically proven to improve joint comfort... in as little as six days. drinking it every day keeps it working. elations has clinically proven levels... of glucosamine and chondroitin, in a powerful form that's more absorbable... than joint supplement pills. tastes great. goodbye, horse pills.

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will that new budget like the old budget triple the national debt and continue to take us

down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25% of our economy 12346789. >> you have give of yourselves little room work in a bipartisan fashion because you have been telling the constituents, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that is going to detroy america. >> chris: time for the sunday group of fox news contributors. bill kristol of the weekly standard. mara liasson, syndicated col upist charles krauthammer and juan williams also from national public radio. do you think he was just trying to score points. >> i agree with the president that he has been doing all kinds of crazy stuff with trying to destroy america and the good news is a lot of it has been stopped. he was marked by reality his first year.

five years after being inaugural rated -- five days after he said we are going to fundamentally transform the united states of america. that wasn't his mandate. it was not his authority. luckily it turned out to be beyond his ability. does he learn lessons from the first year, the failure to close guantanamo, the failure of the healthcare plan, letting justice department deal with terrorists, all the things he tried and failed. does he really learn the lesson. >> chris: what you saw in the state of the union has he learned the less on or not? >> mixed. he understands that things went wrong. he is not in denile of reality. the question is does he take the consequences of what happened or pull back and be a little more cautious and trying to do the same thing. in some areas he seems to be moving. look at how quickly they dropped the trial in new york city of khalid sheik muhammad. mayor bloomberg said now and

the white house called up the justice department and said forget about this. he could have i think a more centrist second year than a lot of my conservative friends think. i'm not so sure that he couldn't move awkwardly and incrementally. we could look up fro two months from now and it could be a different obama administration than it seemed to be two months ago. >> it will be. i think he always planned to move to have a more centrist second year. focus on the deficit. certainly less big tough votes for his party to take in advantage. at the beginning of the obama administration all of us asked the question which is we were going to test the thesis of how much congress could handle because he was giving them more than any other congress has been asked to do. financial reregulation, cap and trade, healthcare. the answer is not it this much. i think that that is one thing that he has learned. it was too much for congress to do. the biggest -- the biggest

failure for the president so far and i think he could still get it in the end, is healthcare. that he certainly planned to pivot this year but he planned to pivot after a big triumph on healthcare. i think what happened with the republicans was a great thing for both the republicans and the president. and i think he should do it more often. >> chris: charles, short of surrender on either side, do you see a practical, a realistic possibility of compromise with the two parties coming together on some of these great issues and do you since any political will on either side to do so? >> no and no. also i disagree with my colleagues on interpreting how the president is acting. i think he has not learned. i think he has not changed. i think he remains an idealogue and i don't see a pivot. i find it amazing that the state of the union address repeated all the themes in a speech he made to a joint session of congress. he will change a policy here

and there and withdraw it if it is a catastrophe like ksm in new york city trial. then he got the political effect when it was seized upon in massachusetts and the mayor of new york denounced. he understands if he has a loser on his hands he drop it but he doesn't understand why all of the stuff has not succeeded. in the state of the union address he explains healthcare in saying this is a complex bill and he didn't explain it enough. he gave 29 speeches on healthcare. it is a con da sentin condescet somehow the electorate doesn't understand the complexities and sophistication of the new liberal agenda, he has to explain it. it is not that. it was rejected. it wasn't that its misunderstood. that is why h why i think he dt

it. >> chris: do you see them standing by the agenda or trimmed their sails? trimmed their sails some what by going in a different direction which is clearly a focus on jobs. thy ink that was the message that came from the massachusetts race. unlike my colleagues here i think the president has achievements to point to, specifically the help with the economy. clearly the economy was in danger of not only deep recession but possibly depression and president obama in terms of the step that he has taken has helped to avoid that and if you look at the numbers that came from the market last friday, they are indicating this is an economy growing, once again. what you get is republicans and democrats at this' objection with the president on friday. it is one against 140. the president joked yesterday if basketball came here in washington he showed he can go to his right because he went to meet with the congressmen.

the republicans think they get more benefit by being obstructionist versus forcing the democrats into a position where they did nothing the first year. imagine if the republicans didn't get anything done for the year, imagine the criticism. that is what the republicans are voting on in terms of remaining totally obstructionist on the healthcare bill. >> chris: charles, i know that that is what you said right after the president's speech and i have to say i saw it differently. he talked about healthcare and he said yes -- he didn't even say i'm standing by this bill. he said i'm not going to walk away from the bill but brought it up more than 30 minutes into the speech and talked about it for five minutes. he talked about tax credits and tax cuts and a spending freeze. he talked about nuclear power plants and more domestic oil drilling. don't you see any recognition there of a diminished political stance? >> any president to the right,

obviously for tactical reasons but if you look at the themes of that speech. again, it was healthcare, it was education, federalizing college education and energy. he said he wants a climate bill. after all of this. and, of course, at the center as you said the first half was what is now -- what is a stimulus package he calls it now, it he is renamed. it is called the jobs bill. he understood the pr last year wasn't smart. he had a stimulus last year and he is having another one this year. again, it is health energy and education and financial reform. all of the themes are the same. there is no retreat on the idea of changing them fundamentally. he has run into road blocks but i don't see a new direction or anything new scheme mattically. >> chris: we have to step aside for a moment. when we come back, a big blow to the president's effort to

to the president's effort to the way we fight the war on

talk. expensive and it is very disruptive to people in businesses in the area. it would be better to do it elsewhere. >> chris: that is new york city mayor michael bloomberg listing a few of the reasons why 9/11 mastermind khalid shaikh muhammad will most certainly not be tried in manhattan. it hasn't been an official announcement but everybody knows it is not going to be a trial this downtown new york. how big an embarrassment is this for the administration? >> an embarrassment for eric

holder. president obama gave the. >> astutest department the lead, he did this without taking advice from national security types. it is not going to happen in new york and they have to retreat in my view on the whole thing. they will be tried by a military commission in guantanamo bay, their home base, i believe. >> chris: really? >> you can't justify a civil trial elsewhere either. other places aren't going to take it and congress is going to appropriate $200 million to do this -- evan bayh said it well, do it safely, quickly and inexpensively. camp justice at guantanamo bay is set to do that. the military tribunals are fine. not not why ksm there. >> there is ways to try him elsewhere not for $200 million that are not guantanamo bay. the mayor of newberg, new york, where there is an air force

base where it would be perfectly clear it would not cost $200 million to try him there. he thought that he shouldn't be tried in the civilian court. it was the cost, the security. once everybody understood what was going to happen to lower manhattan they changed their mind so it wasn't idea logical. there are other places that want this trial to nap their communities. they have this -- to happen in their communities. i think it could happen even in the southern district of new york which is where the best terrorism prosecutors are and there are many reasons to have it in there and newberg, new york, is in that district. >> chris: let me ask a question that i asked the blue ribbon panel as opposed to you guys who o are, what, a yellow ribbon panel or something like that. it was eric holder the attorney general who made the calls, one, to hold the trial in new york city. two, either somebody or in the justice department but it is under him to charge or to read

abdulmutallab his miranda rights after only 50 minutes of fbi interrogation. is he in trouble and should he be in trouble? >> he is close with the president and i think that will count. it shouldn't. he has made fundamental mistakes in the war on terror. interrogation of someone attempting an attack on the united states who came out of yemen and presumably who knows something about what is happening in yemen which is the most active al-qaeda cell in the world who gets essentially is pass on giving us information. that was a mistake that apparently his department made unany laterally. the trial of skm is a sham. it will be costly, it will lock down half of new york and makes no sense in principle because it gives ksm the killian rights of cross-examination which

risks betraying intelligence sources and methods. he made all these decisions he has to go. >> this is so political an attack i don't know where to begin. it seems in creedible at a time when we have i think it is 340, maybe 350 domestic and international terrorists in american jails and most of these jails under the bush administration. all of a sudden here the right wing is saying it this is about what or not these people judds should be put in military courts, why are they being allowed to be mirandaizeed and tried in civilian courts. the shift is to attack holder. this is unfair and unjustified. it is trying to make national security as a political weapon against the obama administration with no justification. >> if it as political argument why is it that we saw this morning in the questioning of the congressmen, democrats are running away from -- >> they are not running.

>> from ksm in new york. >> yes, in lower manhattan. >> and they all are -- on miranda rights, the democrats are scared to death on defending the miranda rights. >> anybody can defend the miranda rights. >> i supported the president on afghanistan and iraq. i have no problem with bob gates as secretary of defense. i don't have much problem with hillary clinton as is secretary of state. it is just unfair to say that we think eric holder is doing a bad job. he is doing a bad job. he has been an incompetent attorney general. >> you are simply saying you disagree with the sigh dethat the civilian courts could handle abdulmutallab. >> you defend the decision not to let -- >> and the bush administration -- >> do you defend the decision not to let the cia know that abdulmutallab -- i think shelters thud have let everybody know and when we see

a list of the intelligence officials saying they were unaware, that to me is wrong. it is also the case that they did not understand that this man was not a lone wolf and that he was tied in al-qaeda and the arabian peninsula. >> how could you not understand that? >> please, come on. >> you arrest a guy who has a bomb in his underpants. it is likely he didn't do it at home in his kitchen. >> it is not. >> and the guy is a nigerian. you have to assume that he has people who are working with him. >> because he is a nigerian? >> why do you assume otherwise. in it makes no sense at all. you capture a terrorist in almost all of our plots there are groups of terrorists. why would you assume he is acting alone and not interrogate him to the point where you would -- >> let me break the news to you charles. we have made such progress in terms of breaking down al-qaeda in terms of getting them in terms of their structure to

malfunction there are now more lone wolfs. there was no evidence that this man -- >> juan -- >> had come from an al-qaeda training cam. >> he said he was from yemen. once you hear that. >> if you alerted the cia, they had intercepts with his name. remember, his father had gone to the embassy. if you are a responsible person you immediately let the cia on intelligence people know. >> you don't mirandaize him. >> the president and others said there was a systemic fail. >> who is accountable? >> eric holder is now accountable for all intelligence failures including by the british and everybody else who didn't underand it what abdulmutallab was up to? that seems to me to be political and try to beat up

the obama administration. >> we will continue the discussion on panel plus. see you all next week. time for comments that you posted to the blog. wallace watch. we get many e-mails each week about panel plus where the group continues the discussion after the show ends. here is one from a viewer who goes by the name freedom -- this is the greatest plug of all time. gang, could you please work on making access to panel plus a little easier. for starters how about stating when the video is available after each show. freedom jack, here is your answer. we will post the latest edition of panel plus by noon eastern each sunday. check it out at fox news sunday.com and we will have the continued conversation. go to "fox news sunday" and you will see it. up next, our power player of

>> chris: again, noon eastern, panel >> again noon eastern. a lot of chatter these days that print media is dying and only old folks like, well, us ny. which is why we were delighted to find a man that follows the news intently. here is the power player of the week. >> it's no wonder one-way street

where the media broadcasts something out or print in the newspaper, there is no dialogue. >> daniel, a 19-year-old sophomore at george washington university practices what he calls citizen journalism. which means he is a self-appointed editor to some of the top reporters. >> how many articles do you read a day? >> 80. >> how many e-mails do you write a day? >> 10 or 15. >> he says there is a factual error in the story or suggesting a lead they may want to check out. >> is it true that you correct writers grammar. >> you might think some reporters would not like a kid correcting them but they like his correspondence. he started getting e-mails when he was reporting from china. >> at least a couple of a day. many hundreds of e-mails. >> he says lipman pointed out

one typo but usually suggests other stories he should pursue. >> the great majority are leads, things he has come across that he thinks is interesting. >> chris: he finally met lipman at the obama inauguration. >> what does a college student get out of that? >> my feeling of contributing a small part if i correct something. it makes me feel like i'm a small part of the media. >> chris: what do your friends think of you? >> sometimes they say, maybe you should proofread a paper of mine before i send it off to the professor. >> chris: lipman started in high school where he noticed errors in his hometown newspaper and would write to the editor. he ended up with an internship and then later worked in congress. not surprisingly he wanted to go

into politics after college but for now, he wants riders to get the facts. >> when all these stories are read by hundreds of thousands of people, you feel like, it feels gratifying to me in that way. >> chris: should i expect an e-mail from you? >> only if you do anything wrong but generally i think fox news sunday is pretty accurate. >> chris: thank you for that. >> sure. >> chris: i don't think i've ever checked a story more carefully than this one. i won't rest easy until i see what daniel has to say about it. program note, next week, our guests will be sarah palin. its her first sunday interview show ever. if you have a question for the former governor, send it to our blog at fox news sunday.com. we'll see you next fox news sunday.